


Of hideous sweaters and half-acknowledged feelings

by heckblazer



Series: Festive themed fanfic [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 18:17:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16815919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heckblazer/pseuds/heckblazer
Summary: The Doctor made The Master a Christmas jumper.Day 13 : You made me an ugly Christmas sweater





	Of hideous sweaters and half-acknowledged feelings

“This.” he proclaimed, gesturing wildly to the monstrosity before him. “Is hideous.”

The christmas jumper before him was a whole new level of ugly, worse even than the Rassilon awful cricket kit the other used to wear, or the Joseph’s technicolour choking hazard of scarves. Not only was if fuschia, fuschia! It wasn’t even grammatically accurate, the dolt who’d made it had clearly vastly overestimated the amount of wool required and space needed. Knitting the a lopsided “merry chris” across the chest with several extra exclamation marks hastily added on afterwards for emphasis. All done in the least complimentary colour to fuschia possible, an acidic, glittery, lime green.

He wanted to scowl, really emphasise his distaste at what could only be described as the galaxy’s least fashionable woolen abomination since the fourth age of Alternus. But the disgustingly cutsey puppy dog eyes across from him grudgingly swayed him to settle on just a blank slate of impassivity instead.

“Do you honestly expect me to wear that.”

“Yes! It’s Christmas that’s what people do! They put on an ugly jumper, pop off to nan’s and eat more food than should be scientifically advisable.”

“What humans do. You mean.”

His grin freezes a bit, turning less genuine than before, unnoticeable to most but not to him. He’s had centuries to learn the other’s ticks and he’d recognise them on any of his faces.

“Because we’re not humans are we, Doctor? We’re Time Lords. We don’t even need that much food to survive, and visiting the family? Really? I expected more from you of all people, considering your delicious act of genocide is the reason we both have no family to speak of.”

The Doctor releases a guttural groan of exhaustion, pulling at his stupidly spiky hair. “Yes thank you for that. Because I’ve definitely forgotten about it in the five hours and fourteen seconds since you told me last!” He sags in his chair, looking hopelessly defeated and The Master thinks that this might be the closest to a real emotion he’s displayed in weeks, fascinating.

“Look. I know it’s useless and pointless and stupidly human of me, I know!..I just….I thought it would be nice if we could do something different for once. Something other than this constant fighting. Like we were before.”

His voice trails off towards the end and for once the puppy dog eyes can’t seem to meet his own. Huh. This was- unexpected. He’d expected it to feel better to be honest. In all his fantasies the day The Doctor finally broke down and stopped hiding the hurt behind that perpetual smile, behind that whole “mysterious TimeLord shtick” he liked to parade about in with his human acolytes, had seemed more satisfying. More fulfilling. This just felt wrong. Like he’d just hit his own mother of something. Worse even. A sort of sinking feeling that made his chest hurt when he thought about it for too long. No, this wasn’t right at all.

“I suppose-” he began stiltedly, Theta was still upset, still avoiding his eye contact. “I suppose the jumper isn’t too terrible.”

“Really?” Came the tentative reply, the other began to smile again, a small, slightly lopsided little grin he hadn’t seen in centuries.

“Yes really you idiot. Now don’t make me regret this. Just this once.”

The smile merged into a full on grin and suddenly the chest pain went away.

“Brilliant! I can’t wait to show you what I’ve got planned! There’s this little town on Trenzalore, a low level planet I haven’t been to yet but it’s actually called Christmas! I’ve always wanted to check it out, there are legends of it having a mysterious protector who…..”

Yes. he thought, this was much better. The woolen monstrosity wasn’t even so bad after a few minutes, soft even. Whatever was waiting for them at this ‘Trenzalore’ would be worth it for the others happiness. He’d never actually tell him that of course, but after all these years they both knew how the other really felt. He could see countless more Christmases in the future.

Hopefully with slightly less hideous apparel.

**Author's Note:**

> Trenzalore ref to 11th doc because honestly the amount of unsaid angst between the master and the doctor deserves an honesty field of it's own to sort it out.  
> I feel like the master's simm regen is very much Not Over the doctors act of genocide and the loss of his entire species. The reminders are both an easy guilt trip for the doctor and and warning to himself that he should still be angry at the doctor about it.  
> I like to think that 10 did actually have places to be, Martha's family invited him to their Christmas dinner as a thank you of sorts for ending the year that never was but he had to decline for obvious reasons of not wanting to leave the master alone in the tardis.  
> Not really fluff and more angsty than christmas is supposed to be but this was the first advent day I wrote and I'm a bit out of practice sooo.


End file.
